The Bloody What?
by Still Free Me
Summary: Uzumaki Naruto did not return from the retrieval mission, he was murdered. Some say it was an accident, others it was in cold blood, but the fact remains that Konoha isn't the same. So when he comes from the edge of death itself, everything changes.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Don't own. I own the rights to this fic though.**

**Summary**:

Uzumaki Naruto did not come back after the battle in the Valley of the End. He did not make it back to see all of his friends and surrogate family members after the ordeal with a smile, nor did he get to say a word about how hungry he was, how much he wanted ramen, or how much he so wished to train.

Uzumaki Naruto died. He was murdered. At least in the eyes of some.

His sensei, Hatake Kakashi, the son of White Fang, did not make it in time to stop him from battling, nor was he fast enough to get to Konoha to save his student. Instead, he was able to save Uchiha Sasuke, who assed out from fatigued with his battle with Naruto.

Subaku no Temari and Nara Shikamaru did not win in their fight with the Sound Four member Tayuya. Instead of taking her out with her fan, Temari overestimated the distance and sent a barrage of trees crashing down on not only herself, but Shikamaru and Tayuya as well, instead of her original target. As they tried to escape, they all were seemingly crushed under the trees. They were quickly recovered.

Rock Lee and Subaku no Gaara, unaware of the goings on around them, succeeded in defeating the Last Kaguya, Kimimaro. However, it was not because of sheer skill. Even with Lee's superior taijutsu and Gaara's sand, Kimimaro was more than a match for them. In the last seconds of battle, Kimimaro lunged at Gaara and Lee from within the forest of bones he created, planning to kill them. With Gaara nearly out of chakra, he started to couch eratically, and eventually blood, and this event allowed Gaara to use what little chakra he had left, to crush him in a sand like coffin, crushing his most of his bones instantaneously. And yet, he did not die. Kimimaro lived.

Kimimaro and Tayuya have been captured and interrogated for the plans of their master, former shinobi of Konoha, and snake sannin, Orochimaru as soon as they were well enough to be out of the emergency room. Meanwhile, Kakashi arrived with the battered and bloody body of one Uchiha Sasuke in his arms, and the prone, lifeless body as well, via shadow clone.

Uchiha Sasuke is being hed in the emergency room from severe chakra exhaustion.

Naruto was in the morgue.

It's been three weeks since then. His body is gone.

This is where it begins.

* * *

"Shizune~! Get me another bottle!" The short, black haired beauty and apprentice of the Godaime Hokage sighed as she walked aaway from the bottle littered office. Papers were everywhere, tables and chairs were reduced to rubble and dust, and several holes were in the walls in the shape of fists. It was the outcome of one thing, and one thing only, and she dared not speak it aloud. This wasn't Senju Tsunade at her worst.

The sounds from within alternated between laughing, growling in anger, crying hysterically, and sobbing pitifully. Somme would say that there was not much difference between the latter two, but Shizune would whole heartedly disagree. She could hear it in her long time friend and master, the difference, the pain.

She struggled not to cry herself; her eyes were still red and her cheeks were still puffed out and frozen from tears not long past, that had drained from her face and left her completely dehydrated. It was just her allergy, she wanted to tell herself. A simple Spring allergen jutsu would cure the problem easily. Again and again, she fought to come up with a different excuse for her and her sensei's sadness; for Tsunade it was her yandere like attitude and drinking problem, and for her... for her, all she had was a lame excuse about pollen. Pathetic, she berated herself all to harshly.

She sat down at her desk that was now at least two hallways from her sensei's after getting the previous forty-eight destroyed by them both. In her hands were a bundle of folders, all packed to the gills with papr and files that threatened to burst from her delicate, yet coarse fingers if she made the slightest wrong move. She had to channel chakra into her hands just to keep it from falling.

Shizune dropped the bundle of folders to her desk and winced when the resounding bang met her ears like a church bell. She smiled bitterly. That was what she got for crying so much.

She sat there limply for a few moments, her eyes staring holes into the folders. She wished she could set them on fire, and throw them out the window, and she damn well could have, but she hadn't been out of the tower in days, and she didn't plan on being out anytime soon either. She was completely disgusted with her village. No, it wasn't her village. It was _never_ her village and she'd been damned if anyone said otherwise!

She put a hand to her forehead tiredly, her bloodshot eyes closing for just a moment. The parties were still raging, and people were still celebrating as if some great war had been won, as if some great foe had recently been defeated.

Well, in a way, in those with eyes for only fear and hate, she supposed that was morbidly correct.

Paperwork and reports upon paperwork and reports flooded in repeatedly about civilians being attacked by several shinobi of the village, namely the rookie nine. It was almost enough to get her to smile the tiniest, tinniest smile to know that they cared so much. She knew that he would be conflicted, the damned idiot, but she also knew that part of him would be extremely joyful, for no other reason than to have such a reaction.

As she went through events passed in her head that had been burned there by sheer shock, she thought of the main culprits of the attacks. They were astonishingly open about it, going as far as to protest to the ANBU that the ones attacked deserved it for 'slurring the fallen' or something along those lines. Anything that had to do with it gave her a humongous headache, so she didn't like to think of it much.

There were three of them. One, that seemingly kind and docile chuunin teacher from the Academy that she respected possibly above everyone of the senior shinobi simply because of his relationship with 'the fallen', Umino Iruka. The man had gone into a complete rage, going as far as beating out mobs of celebrations one by one while breaking arms, legs, and cutting them as well as other body parts. _That_ made her smile; she didn't care if it was sadistic or not, the term 'You reap what you sow' was enough defense in her case.

The other one, a person whom she had not been readily introduced too, nor had enough time to ever meet, but heard much about, was a teenage girl that helped run a ramen stand not too far away from the Hokage Tower. The girl was possibly even more notorious than the Academy teacher, with her sending in victims with concussions and bleeding heads, and some in temporary comas that frankly, she refused to get them out of. She was amazed what one could do with a rolling pin, a pot, and a pan.

At the last, and certainly not least, she thought with an actual laugh, was none other than the heir to the Hyuuga clan. Oh how much wrath she brought upon those who spoke ill of her not so secret love! Even the ANBU had trouble retaining her when some civilian had dared call her love a 'useless, monstrous, piece of trash that deserved death and more'. In the end, they had to rush them to the emergency room because of ruptured arteries, severe blood clots, and unmovable limbs that weren't going to be used for a _very_ long time. And once again, she refused to heal them.

She briefly considered the idea of herself being a closet sadist, similar to that woman Mitarashi Anko for a second or so, but dismissed it. The people deserved what they got, was what she told herself, and that was something she held no doubt about.

"_Shizune! _Bring *hic* the sake *hic*!" The slurred, sobbing voice of her mentor screamed, enough to echo throughout several hallways and still rebound back into her ears after she had covered them. She furrowed her eyebrows and looked to the left side of her desk at the last bottle of sake they had. Tsunade had emptied all of the bottles in her secret stash and Shizune didn't stop her. Hell, she joined her. But this was the last bottle, and it only had a cup and a half's worth left anyway.

So without a second thought, Shizune popped the cork off, and guzzled it down in a similar fashion to that of Tsunade, which was something that had rubbed off on her over the years.

When the last drop was drained, she slammed it to the table angrily, as she had never been one to hold her liquor, sake, alcohol, or anything else that could get her moderately inebriated. Her eyebrows furrowed into a scowl, her thoughts became angrier, and so did her disposition. It was all accented by her eyes and disgruntled appearance that said that she had not obtained more than nine hours of sleep in the last three weeks, and her rationality was running incredibly thin to go out the window.

With those two sound four, or should she say sound five, the pathetic little bastards, being held captive by Morino Ibiki, Yamanaka Inoichi, and Mitarashi Anko, she had half a mind to go in there herself and stab a chakra scalpel through their eyes with no anesthetic, just to hear them scream. It was all their fault, after all. They had been there to take away the Uchiha, who had left willingly, they had been there to stop the nine from retrieving him, and they had been there to ruin the very single thing that was starting to make her sensei happy again!

And then there was the Uchiha himself. Her eyes widened and she made a back up motion with her hands to no one in particular, but the ANBU in the corners of the room raised an eyebrow. That snobbish little bastard deserve to get tortured or banished at the very least. How she would juts enjoy stomping on him like a little grape- man that would feel invigorating!

It wasn't even that snot nosed, overly pampered punk's fault entirely. Well, maybe it was, but she wouldn't have given a damn if he left anyway. The village didn't need him anymore, they had his genetic sample.

No, if it was anyone's fault-and it was-it would be that stupid little pink haired, tooth pick figured, green eyes of envy, worthless wannabe kunoichi fan-girl Sakura! Yes, this was all her fault, Shizune raged inside her mind, unaware that she was now destroying the edges of her desk with her finger tips even though the wood was splintering fantastically.

If she hadn't have been so utterly _useless_ and _naive,_ so completely devoted to that pampered Uchiha, Naruto-

Naruto. The very name made her want to smile and cry at the same time.

She stopped suddenly, her shoulders drooped. She hated to say it, but, if it was anyones fault-and it was-it was his. He was loyal to a fault and naive as well. He didn't realize when to give up or turn his back, which was why he was the most unpredictable ninja, yet the worst as well.

He'd been the one to promise Sakura to bring back the Uchiha.

He'd been the one to stay and fight when the Uchiha obviously didn't want to stay in the village.

He'd been the one that still loved the village, even though she had no clue how, to the point of stupidity.

And he'd also be the one spinning in the grave right now. As such were her thoughts from the day she saw his lifeless body on a gurney in the hospital, and such would be her thoughts for years to come, especially since they had yet to have a funeral for him.

Her desk, which was not so thoughtfully placed in front of the main doorway to get to the lower floor, thumped shamelessly, causing her to look up from where her eyes began to leak again. It was a visitor, no doubt, probably some idiot civilian who wanted to rent out Naruto's apartment for the sheer sake of destroying it or making money from it. The last one with such intentions, which were actually a couple, were punched and thrown out of the window and into the market district like a couple of rag dolls. That had felt good too, seeing as Tsunade was passed out under her desk, and she was left to do it.

When she looked up, her eyes instantly narrowed at the sight of upstanding silver hair and one eye that was as baggy as hers. "Kakashi." She growled, her voice filled with venom that she surmised was well fitting for the Son of White Fang, who simply looked down shamefully.

The man had made numerous visits to her and Tsunade, almost more than Iruka or Ichiraku Ayame and Ichiraku Teuchi did. While she would never admit it, it was nice to see him actually give a damn about something for once, even if it was too late. But she still whole-heartedly resented the man for being late for something that was even _more_ important than a team mission _and_ being one of the matches to the dynamite for his students death.

When part of her asked to put more salt on the wound, she gladly obliged.

"Hello Shizune. I was wondering if I could speak to Hokage-sama about-" the masked man started, his cheerful voice an obvious and pitiful facade.

"She's busy at the moment Kakashi." Shizune growled again, her eyes still wishing to glare the man into becoming the first living porous human.

"Ah." He stood there for a moment, his one eye darting from her to the folders nervously; the man was hard pressed for something to say before he was kicked out or threatened with a kunai where the sun didn't shine. Shizune noticed this and sighed, her struggle to drop her glower visibly apparent. She reached out and grasped one of the folders and handed it to the man, who took it in earnest.

"This would be?" His former lazy tone of voice was cracked and hoarse, and his throat was dry and sounded like it hurt quite a bit. Good, Shizune smirked. That's what you get you lazy son of a fu-

"The reprimands for the shinobi who attacked the civilians. These are to be delivered to each of them, _today_." She would have rather burned them, but she had a job to do, a job that paid for more sake. In other words, he was to get it done or get an uppercut through the roof.

"Very well." Kakashi, for once, she noticed, did not use a shunshin, but instead opted to go back the way from whence he came, which perplexed her a little. That is until she remembered Tsunade had place chakra sensors throughout the floor, that were set to go off from any jutsu.

She grit her teeth and rubbed her head before letting it softly drop to the table. Her head snapped up the moment she heard a thumping sound come from within the drawers. She opened them and laughed evilly on the inside when she saw the latest import of sake from Wave Country that she had forgotten about, which was supposedly ten times stronger than conventional sake. And there were three bottles worth.

"Shizune~! Sake now~!" Tsunade whined her voice making the young woman cringe a little as she got up with only _one_ out of the three bottles in hand and walked to the office once more only to stop dead in her tracks.

Wave Country had yet to receive the news. Suna was on the brink of breaking their new treaty, but Wave Country... she gulped at the thought of the repercussions and looked at the bottle in her hand. Perhaps she would be needing all three bottles soon?

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up as she opted to give at least one bottle to her mentor. While she walked to the door she could have sworn she heard the unmistakable sound of someone yelling and screaming, as well as stomping their way on, but cast it aside.

She looked at the door to Tsunade's office and sniffed a little. There was a hole going straight through it, and on it was written, _'Naruto was here'_ with whisker marks on the sides of the hole. She remembered that day. He'd slammed a rasengan straight through it just for the purpose of a prank, and afterward, Tsunade was so angry that she just burst out laughing.

"Shizune~!"

"I'm coming Tsunade-sama!" She pushed the doors open and was careful not to crush any bottles under her feet whilee made her way to Tsunade, who was lying limp over her desk, drool leaking shamelessly out of her mouth like a faucet.

Shizune set the bottle down and quickly turned to leave so she wouldn't have to listen to her mentors drunken rage at several things ranging from the village, to the high price of sake, gambling, or her old teammate Jiraiya.

And just when she made it to the doorway, the woman uttered in the most pathetic, sad, down trodden, and broken voice she ever heard, "Thank you Shizune. I-I know I-I c-can always c-count on y-you." She felt her heart clench when those words left a void in the air like no other before. This was tearing her up inside, she could tell. And because of that, she was suffering indefinitely.

"Yes... Tsunade-sama." The door suddenly burst open, splinters flying everywhere and embedding themselves in the wall, and the door itself was knocked off it hinges. Tsunade and Shizune both looked at the intruder with anger and shock respectively, both with different reasons.

"Jiraiya what the fuck do you want? I don't have time for you now!" The said man looked infuriated and broken, much like Tsunade herself was, except he had the decency to cover up the stench of vomit and hardcore liquor with cheap cologne. His eyes were nearly blood red and very beady, his hair ragged and looked to be patched like it had been cut or pulled out in numerous places, and his hands were the picture identity of tenderized meat. It was as if he spent an hour trying to turn stone into dust with his bare hands.

"Well? Answer me!" The Godaime Hokage all but screamed. Shizune winced; to say that the two hadn't been on the best of terms recently would be the understatement of the century. Their arguments could be heard throughout the entire village when in the tower, and sometimes it would be taken to the Hokage mansion where explosions would be heard. Many a time inn the past three weeks ANBU units had been sent there just in case, and they made the perfect vent for anger. At least in Shizune's case.

And in the bottom of her heart, Shizune knew that all the arguments, the insults they dished out the past few weeks were true. There was no denying that one bit.

Jiraiya looked to Shizune and nodded briskly, a hoarse grunt coming from his throat like nails on a chalkboard. He swayed for a moment in inebriation before stumbling forward a bit and looking Tsunade right in the eye. She was gripping her table so tight that it began to turn into rough chipped sawdust, and looked like she was going to rip his head off, as such had been there reactions to each other every time they met for the past few days.

"Dear Hokage-sama-chan-hime," Jiraiya started in a voice as slurred as the golden eyed blonde, his voice leaking sarcasm and venom, "I have come to report of something that may just well catch your interest, that you might not run away from like so many other things in the past." His tall form bowed and rose just as quickly, making him shake his head dizzily. "Would you A, like to hear it and deeal with it, or B, crawl into a bottle like you always do and try to run away?"

"You bastard," Tsunade stood up and threw her desk out of the window and stormed toward her former teammate who didn't look the least bit fazed with her fist cocked back. Just as her fist was ready to collide, Jiraiya grabbed it and his entire anngry disposition faded, replaced by a melancholy one. "You of all people have _no_ right whatsoever to say that to _me_ you damn pervert!"

"Forgive me for being... _hesitant_ of your reliability Hokage-sama. I assumed you would care of something that recently came to light. I suppose I was," he hiccuped, "wrong." As the toad sannin turned to walk away Tsunade grabbed him and spun him around so she could `glower at him, her alcohol filled breath meeting his vomit scented one. "What. D. You. _Want_?"

Jiraiya yanked her hand off of him, mildly surprising her. "If you weren't so damn icaught up in your own problems, maybe you would have had the common sense to check the MORGUE once in a while dammit!"

Shizune felt a sense of dread fill her, and from the look on her mentor's face, she did as well. Jiraiya took a moment to calm down before looking back to Tsunade with a broken look that she herself wore, and turned around, finally walking out.

"It's Naruto. He's gone."

They would never see Tsunade break through the window so fast ever again with such a torn look on her face.

* * *

That puts a twist on thing eh?


	2. Chapter 2

**The Bloody What?**

**Chapter 2 (edit)**

**Still Free Me**

**A/N: Alrighty!**** I'm not the best updater- update-ee, person who updates quickly? Whatever. I know I don't update quickly. At least, when it matters, anyway. In my defense, Office 2003 and above are my muses, what with their bright and shiny blueness, it makes me so tingly on the inside and helps me write, but I lost it because it was a trial.**

**But I got 'em back, so that's the end of that. Moving on,****I didn't enjoy the end of the chapter the first time around much. As a matter of fact, with the way things were going even at that rate, I couldn't write in that direction much more. I still wish I were able to make it past the six-thousand mark though, but theres only so much you can do.**

**So, instead of the last ending, I have this. I like it better, so enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: Don't own. I own the rights to this fic though.**

**Summary**:

Uzumaki Naruto did not come back after the battle in the Valley of the End. He did not make it back to see all of his friends and surrogate family members after the ordeal with a smile, nor did he get to say a word about how hungry he was, how much he wanted ramen, or how much he so wished to train.

Uzumaki Naruto died. And in the eyes of those close to him, he was murdered.

His sensei, Hatake Kakashi, the son of White Fang, did not make it in time to stop him from battling, nor was he fast enough to get to Konoha to save his student. Instead, he was able to save Uchiha Sasuke, who assed out from fatigued with his battle with Naruto.

Subaku no Temari and Nara Shikamaru did not win in their fight with the Sound Four member Tayuya. Instead of taking her out with her fan, Temari overestimated the distance and sent a barrage of trees crashing down on not only herself, but Shikamaru and Tayuya as well, instead of her original target. As they tried to escape, they all were seemingly crushed under the trees. They were quickly recovered.

Rock Lee and Subaku no Gaara, unaware of the goings on around them, succeeded in defeating the Last Kaguya, Kimimaro. However, it was not because of sheer skill. Even with Lee's superior taijutsu and Gaara's sand, Kimimaro was more than a match for them. In the last seconds of battle, Kimimaro lunged at Gaara and Lee from within the forest of bones he created, planning to kill them. With Gaara nearly out of chakra, he started to couch erratically, and eventually blood, and this event allowed Gaara to use what little chakra he had left, to crush him in a sand like coffin, crushing his most of his bones instantaneously. And yet, he did not die. Kimimaro lived.

Kimimaro and Tayuya have been captured and interrogated for the plans of their master, former shinobi of Konoha, and snake Sannin, Orochimaru as soon as they were well enough to be out of the emergency room. Meanwhile, Kakashi arrived with the battered and bloody body of one Uchiha Sasuke in his arms, and the prone, lifeless body as well, via shadow clone.

Uchiha Sasuke is being held in the emergency room from severe chakra exhaustion.

Naruto was in the morgue.

It's been three weeks since then. His body is gone.

This is where it begins.

**

* * *

**

"Umino Iruka… Hyuuga Hinata and Ichiraku Ayame? Hm…" Kakashi absently thumbed through the files Shizune had given him as he walked down the steps of the Hokage tower, passing by a disheveled man with unkempt and dirty hair littered with bits of food among other things and alight stubble.

He reeked of vomit and hardcore alcohol and Kakashi almost didn't bother to give him a second glance, but the man did, which made him realize who exactly it was. Of course, once he paid attention to the two red streaks on his cheeks and the bead eyes, it was quite obvious.

"J-Jiraiya-sama?" He stuttered, looking at the man whom he considered a hero in a level under shock. He hadn't been seen for as many days as Tsunade had been locked in her office without any sign of coming out except to go home. Of course there were reports of fights and explosions from high ranked jutsu being expelled from the Hokage mansion, walls of buildings destroyed, sidewalks wrecked, civilians injured in the crossfire… He almost wanted to think about what exactly they had been fighting about, but feared it would make even him cringe.

The toad Sannin passed his with a nod. "Kakashi, may this day not affect your personality." He stated ominously, before disappearing

Kakashi had to wonder how exactly he would get into the office without alerting Shizune, what with her desk being right in front of the only door and no one even _daring_ to use the window with the state of disrepair that Tsunade was in. Instead of wondering why and what reason the Toad Sannin had coming here, a shiver ran down his back at the thought of the last time someone else had tried to do the exact same thing.

It was common news around most of the shinobi who weren't on missions at the time: people had been attempting to talk the Hokage into something, and every time they would be expelled from the office before they could get a second wind of their query out, but not as nicely as Shizune had done with him. _Then, _the last time people of a disapproving… _disposition_ had come up, Shizune had been waiting for them behind the door and when they opened it, kicked it out down the stairs right in their faces.

Of course he was also attempting to come up to speak to the Hokage, who, at the time had been 'desk ridden' by overdosing on sake, but thankfully got out of the way in time.

He couldn't help but drop his shoulders as the first laugh he'd experienced in a few days left him with a sour disposition. They hadn't had any missions in days and no one, after hearing what would happen to most of the people that attempted, even tried going to speak to the Hokage for a mission, or even guard duty, whether it be D-rank or working at the academy.

All of those who had their shifts would have to keep doing them until somebody in power said otherwise, and without the Hokage herself the village council couldn't discuss thing lest they be charged with treason.

Walking down the last step, he raised an eyebrow at the file he was currently reading for the Ichiraku girl. Numerous reports of her attacking civilians well into her childhood had been reported, but no one ever bothered to look into them. Aside from being a conventional civilian, she had even attempted to get into the academy many times, but the farthest she ever got was two years of education before she had to drop out to help her father with the… ramen shop.

It didn't actually say that, actually it said, _"Due to familial problems they have been on temporary leave the program,"_ with the grant being approved by the Sandaime himself. So it was more implied than anything else… which made Kakashi wonder…

Shaking his head, he kept on reading as the reports kept getting more interesting. Apparently when not working she spent a surprisingly long time in the library looking through the shinobi archives but as a civilian, yet again, no one ever bothered to look into _what_ she was doing. Run ins with ANBU squads, the now extinct Uchiha police force, even going as far as disrupting peace at several civilian councilmen's businesses-which he admitted that she was in power to do so, seeing as the greater majority of them were perverted old men.

His eyes widened when he say a side note about her even threatening to file a _lawsuit_ against one of them. She looked so innocent and kind, so how could she be so different?

Oh yes, that rule that he stupidly stopped listening to after he formed his team- look underneath the underneath, or some crackpot saying like that.

"K…Kakashi-sensei?" A meek voice called out. He looked up from the file and was expecting to see Hinata Hyuuga, even though it was known throughout the village that she had been grounded for arguing with her father and going as far as trying to run out of the clan compound afterward.

Instead… he was face to face with none other than Sakura Haruno, who looked as if she was all alone in a world full of monsters. "Ah, Sakura, thank you for waiting for me." He tried to speak in the most cheerful voice possible, but fell short of even being remotely 'interested'.

The girl had come with him to the tower with hopes of speaking to the Hokage about paying her respects, but stopped and refused to climb the stairs the moment she stepped inside the building. And it was _so_odd how just yesterday she had been adamant about visiting the hospital and other things Kakashi neither heard or cared about.

"Hold these for me will you?" He asked, handing Hinata and Iruka's folders to the Sakura, eye glued onto the Ichiraku girl's intently.

Sakura flinched as he held them in front of her, almost hitting her in the face. _It was an accident, just an accident,_ she told herself, sighing in relief. "Y-Yes Kakashi-sensei."

Kakashi's one eye glazed over the parts about Ayame's family history and her brief stint in a civilian school not far away from the academy with little more than a grunt as he walked past Sakura toward the redwood door leading to the streets of the village. He frowned when he noticed that she had indeed attempted to attended the Academy itself like he'd read before, but this had been done when she was at least ten or eleven, where most Academy students would graduate.

Unlike himself, who graduated when boys his age still wore _briefs_. _'Yes, you are definitely a genius in that regard. Just a failure, a dead last as a sensei,'_ a part of him sardonically admonished the almost smug thought, making his shoulders droop again.

There had been _one_ exception for those who entered the Academy abnormally late- if they worked hard enough, they could take the test at the end of the term for the 'senior' students instead of the 'freshman' ones. Though, obviously she hadn't, which was why she wasn't listed as a shinobi in the ninja archives.

But there still wasn't a single word of her being relieved from future shinobi duty even after two or three years of not attending classes or skill lessons. It was beginning to turn a few gears in his head which he hadn't bothered to use in a few days… and slowly, the reason was becoming quite obvious, but he just wanted to be sure.

Reading on, it would seem that the girl had troubles with her anger and would repeatedly get into fights in both civilian school _and_ the Academy. It was always with older children or children her age, even during the Academy. This wasn't very important to him, but it seemed as if it would be of use somehow in the future.

He read on to her general stats- Ichiraku Ayame, age eight, graduation date: X.

That was when Kakashi stopped in his tracks. Unknowing that he'd read all of this before he reached the door causing Sakura to look up at him in confusion, all the pieces fell together and made him want too smack himself for not realizing it minutes in the past like he normally would have.

Naruto had entered at six. Ayame at eight, going on nine, and during that time she had only been a freshman. Ayame was about fourteen, a full two years older than him. She cared deeply for him, something he knew when they had visited the Ichiraku shop and he would attempt to drain his pockets dry for ramen.

Ayame… Ayame entered _because_ of Naruto… And there were no concise notices of her actually dropping out of the program _or_ failing_ any_ classes at all. The Third… The Third must have listed her as an invisible student! It wasn't uncommon, lessons would be listed as private, _and_ participants were still allowed to attend.

Now that he thought deeper, there wasn't any report about dismal attendance or even a day missed!

His eyes dashed all over the page for something he knew that would solidify his beliefs: Her lunch and recess schedule. Indeed, with a sense of pride that wasn't brought down for seconds time, her release, recess, and lunch all took place during the children being taught by veteran chuunin, or the one that Naruto had bragged about so often: Umino Iruka.

During her second year before it listed her being on a temporary leave of absence she had her _classes_ rearranged to match his…

Kakashi's eye caught the bottom right of the page. He frowned determinedly.

The last time this archive of Ichiraku Ayame had been updated was four years ago. Four years ago Naruto was eight and Ayame was ten…

Kakashi shut the folder with a sigh, his chest clenching. He could hear Sakura gasp and tense up, trying to utter out something, _anything_, to break the stagnant silence, but to no avail. "Come on Sakura, let's go. He waved his hand forward and began to walk out the building, not saying a word else. Sakura followed meekly, her head downcast. _Did... Did I do something wrong?_ She asked herself, knowing that no one would answer.

When they had gotten outside Kakashi paused and looked around. "Hmm… Sakura, move a little to the left, will you?" She straightened up at the sound of his voice and felt relieved that he said something, and complied. "No, a little more."

She did so again, looking at him in curiously. "Good." Kakashi himself moved a good distance away from her to the right, directly out of the way the entrance to the tower.

"_You bastard!" _A voice yelled from the Hokage's office, which was a good forty or fifty feet up. "_You of all people have no right to say that to me!"_

"_If you weren't so caught up in your own damn problems, maybe you would have had the common sense to check the _morgue_ once in a while dammit!"_

When all went quiet, Kakashi used all of his skills learned in spy missions to hear what was said next. His eye widened a fraction and he had barely any time to move even more to the right just as the glass from the window to the Hokage's office shattered outward and fell to the ground, the obstruction being none other than the Godaime Hokage, Senju Tsunade.

Sailing toward the ground, screams of passersby hit his senses like doldrums when she chose that moment to show off her astonishing strength by hitting the ground with her bare fist, completely shattering it upon impact as dust and debris flew everywhere and the sound of something only rivaled by thunder screamed through the village.

Debris flew his and Sakura's way, and he instantly dove toward her and jumped up as far as he could to avoid being hit in the side by a chunk of concrete the size of his bottom half. Smoke and dust rose up, clouding her from view and every part of the side walk and road with in a ten foot radius to were risen up fully erect and pointing toward the sky.

As a Team of ANBU appeared to see what the trouble was, Kakashi watched the Hokage break off in a mad dash toward the hospital district of the village, using the smokescreen to keep anyone from following.

When he hit the ground and set Sakura down the words echoed inside his head like a song that wouldn't go away. "_It's Naruto… He's gone."_ Doing the only sensible thing that came to mind, Kakashi dashed after her in the same direction, his heart beating ten miles a minute.

Sakura did the only thing she could do- she followed, not noticing the eyes of Jiraiya watching them from above with a shake of his head.

* * *

Back in the office, Jiraiya turned to Shizune who was idly fiddling her fingers around the cap of the imported liquor anxiously like she was fighting back the urge to guzzle it all down on the spot. Putting a hand on her shoulder, he tried to calm her down as a tear prickled at the edge of her eye.

"Calm down. I knew she wouldn't wait long enough and jump to a ludicrous conclusion, but I suppose it can't be helped…" Jiraiya sighed, an empty laugh coming from his lips.

Shizune recoiled- not just at the smell of his breath or the horrible mix of cologne and vomit that was his scent, but confusion as well. He was hiding something, she just knew he was, and whatever it was would drive her far enough to start drinking down all of the bottles of imported sake, liquor, _and_ alcohol before going after her mentor. "What are you talking about Jiraiya-sama?"

She could have sworn she saw the widest grin flash across his face as quick as lightening before it disappeared in a millisecond, replaced with the cold and downtrodden expression she still wasn't used to, even after these past few days.

Releasing his hold on her shoulder, Jiraiya made a sign for the shunshin, but just before he put his hands together, turned to her and asked, "You _do_ know how to shunshin, right?"

"O-Of course I do! Jiraiya-sama, what is this about? We should be going after Tsunade-sama now!"

He made an annoyed and impatient emphasis to her hands and she sighed exasperatedly- _Such a stubborn man_, she thought with a grumble. "Good, now follow my chakra signature _exactly_ and don't lose sight of me." As Jiraiya put his hands together so did Shizune, and they disappeared in a whirl of leaves.

There was a fun fact about using the shunshin that Shizune was less than fond of. It assaulted the senses like a thunderbolt to the ears, churning the stomach and distorting the eyes like a drug. The effects seemed to last hours or days, but in actuality it only _minutes._

For you see, the greatest downside to the most rudimentary jutsu every ninja should now, was that it attacked the _center _of senses, the _core_ of the nerves.

It attacked the brain.

That was why genin were forbidden from learning it and most chuunin weren't allowed to use them at all unless it was absolutely necessary and they had passed the necessary tests, both physical and mental. It required stamina and mind power- stamina for the actions required to use it effectively and mind power to not be ejected all over the village in a blurred frenzy.

It might have seemed that it defied the rules of time and physics, and partially, it did. Shizune didn't know the basics or the origin of the jutsu but she did know that it multiplied the speed of the user at least by a factor of twenty, which was why only jounin and ANBU knew it since they were the fastest, right under the Hokage.

But, it had to be done in an open field or something with a certain amount of space that allowed maneuverability, which was why they had been able to do it in the office, because of the broken window. The shunshin did not _teleport_, per-say. It sure _looked_ like it did but no one could ever really tell unless right next to the person and sensing their chakra, then realizing that they were only dashing away from a hundred, maybe more, feet away.

This was what Shizune was forced to do, and she didn't like it. Jumping from place to place, building to building, trailing after Jiraiya who for a man his age made her look like an infant puppy. She almost tripped over a pipe on a rooftop building at least six hundred feet away from the tower, watching Tsunade's destruction of the things in her path from above while jumping over the edge… just in time to see Jiraiya dash in the _exact_ opposite direction.

"Jiraiya-sama!" Shizune yelled, but her voice fell upon deaf ears as it was lost in the wind. Another fun fact, she grumbled to herself, was that only wind users could actually manipulate the air so the could run faster without resistance _and_ speak clearly.

Things like this hadn't been in her life for months, and before that, _years_. Of course while her and her mentor were on the run she got the chance to get a spar out of debt collectors and similar people of their ilk, but they never put up much of a fight so her skills remained remedial at best for someone of jounin level like herself.

The world blurred around her as the technique began to take its toll her senses slowly. She shook it and widened her eyes to see Jiraiya jump up in the air and into an alleyway, the feedback from his extensive use of chakra completely gone and the only sign that he was still in the vicinity was the slightly husky breathing of his from below.

Shizune took this time to slow herself to a jog while slowly channeling chakra into her feet so as to not lose her footing before jumping down into the alleyway as well. She immediately regretted it, however, as her legs gave way from her use of them and she tripped downward to the ground.

Just before she could though, Jiraiya caught her deftly. "We're here_,"_ he intoned, the sad tone from his voice seemingly intensified and lessened at the same time, making her mind wander as he set her down and walked forward to a wall from the building they just jumped from.

Her skills weren't so unused that she couldn't see that it was being covered by a genjutsu, albeit it a remotely high one. She covered her now sensitive ears as Jiraiya hoarsely yelled, "Kai!" and the illusion dropped, revealing a expensive looking door that obviously didn't look the part from the dank and dirty look of the alleyway itself.

She watched him hesitantly hold his fist up to the newly revealed doorway, his face conflicted and distraught, before he knocked. "I'm back."

After a few silent and in her opinion, dizzying moments as she started to lose her already deteriorating balance from alcohol and the shunshin, the door opened slowly. She was surprised to see a young girl with a white bandanna over her head and a slightly dingy apron tied around her waist. She was at least five years her junior, maybe more, Shizune stared at her, trying to realize where she had seen the girl before.

It wasn't easy. After her balance went away, the next thing on the list of her senses and coordination was her sight. Her eyes began to heat up and water and everything began to get blurry. Unnoticed by the two of them, Shizune took solace in leaning on the nearby wall by the doorway, as the girl had yet to let them in.

She could see the girl glare at Jiraiya like she wanted to beat him over the head with spiked bat, but instead, swallowed that desire and backed away from the doorway and walked back into the building. She drowsily cast her eyes to Jiraiya who once again looked conflicted before he entered the building as well, his head tilting down and his voice breathing raggedly like he had choked on a bag of nails.

Shizune knew she should follow, but with her eyes blurred and her ability to walk on par with a drunken stumblebum, she tried in vain to grip the wall and used it to drag herself along into the room, wherein she stuck to it, forgetting to close the door.

She wanted to laugh. In her mind, with the dim lighting she could make out and the rather ratty conditions of the room, Jiraiya was probably taking her to a love hotel or something so he could let his mistakes out on some poor woman, or young woman, which was most likely why that girl had waited so long to let them in.

Of course she had no idea why he had brought _her_, and she didn't really want to know either, _ever_. She felt like going to sleep for the first time in days and taking a nice, long, blissful nap before waking up and going on another drinking binge again.

She sniffed. This place smelled… it smelled like ramen. Thick, heavily seasoned, well-cooked ramen. Why in the world would-

"Who is she and why did you bring her here? You said that you were going to bring-" A voice called out, which Shizune guessed was the girl.

"I _know_ what I said. But with the circumstances and the time required, I didn't have enough time. In case you haven't heard already she's going on a rampage downtown, and stopping her would be bad in all cases." Jiraiya had cut the girl off, quite desperately if Shizune's ears hadn't begun to fail her yet. So this place… it _wasn't_ a whorehouse?

She briefly wondered if she could find a bed before she passed out. Her head throbbed violently and she almost fell down in a heap, but managed to stop herself by holding on to a couch oor a table or-or something. She didn't know, and she wasn't concerned either.

She stopped suddenly. Yes, that's right! Tsunade-sama was heading downtown to… to the morgue! Shizune couldn't believe her utter stupidity and lack of interest! Naruto's body was gone! She needed to get to the scene right away and find out what in Kami's name was going on!

She whipped around and headed for the door again, which thankfully someone had left open, and promptly fell over with a thud, her own feet tripping over each other. Yes… that's right, Shizune groused angrily. She was in no shape to head downtown in this condition.

If it was anyone's fault-and it was-it was Jiraiya's. He was the one that beckoned her to follow him to this ramen stinking possible whorehouse via shunshin that depleted her stamina like a leech with blood. She couldn't even walk without falling and now she was sure she had bruised her knees somehow.

She needed a drink. She should have taken the imported alcohol with her.

"Yes, she is just as capable as Tsunade is… given her state at the moment." Jiraiya said from someplace she couldn't see on the floor, with a couch that appeared from nowhere blocking her vision.

"Fine. Hurry up and get her. But I swear if she hurts him in _anyway_," the girl left the threat hanging venomously, but Shizune Jiraiya grunt in confirmation before walking back into whatever room she was in.

She was surprised. By now, if one hadn't learned to use the shunshin correctly or if they triggered the side effects, not only would their balance and eyesight be almost gone, but they would be hallucinating as well as have heightened reactions to touch, even from the smallest thing. After that, it was all reduced to annoyance or anger, as such things happened when one was fatigued, and these things _only _happened when one became _extremely_ fatigued. The breathing of the person in question would become more labored and short in response to the more fatigued and angry they were.

Before the technical last side effect, the next step, or the _mid-step, _would have the person regain _all _of the things lost in the process for a short amount of time, say, half an hour to fourty five minutes. Then it would all come crashing down and if she remembered right from studying precedents on the matter, the victim of the side effects would spontaneously lose consciousness if they hadn't been able to… she couldn't remember the actual words, but _'To not be fatigued anymore', _is as close as she got.

They would be out for at least a few hours before they could even remotely gain consciousness, and even then their five senses would be remotely deteriorated for another two, at the least.

Perhaps the numerous bottles of sake and alcohol had altered her resistance of such things? She scoffed. That was hogwash. Bullshit, as if anything good was going to happen anytime soon.

"Upsidaisy," Jiraiya grunted as she felt his arms hook under her armpits and drag her up. She shivered violently. There's side effect number… Shizune stumbled on them in her mind, giving up halfway before finding out which one it actually was.

Whatever it was, she could feel it happening from Jiraiya guiding her along, probably thinking she could walk on her own, and probably ignoring the fact she had fallen because she _couldn't_ walk. Stupid old bastard, she hissed, but it only came out as an inebriated slur. Can't do anything right. He'd probably let her get killed somehow just like he did Naruto. It was his fault, anyway.

Side effect number four.

"Ayame, turn on the light and hand me that chair over there." Shizune gagged at the badly masked vomit on Jiraiya. It was covered in cheap cologne and it seemed like it had _mixed_ in with the stench of sake and made an all new, completely different odor that made her choke on air. She feebly tried hitting and pushing him away, but in her state, it wasn't even felt by him. It was like she was squirming.

Wait, what did he call the girl?

Lights shrunk her corneas and burned her eyes like matches as the room, which had been almost completely dark, lit up all the way. Shizune wiped her eyes and squinted them, groaning out angrily, which sounded like she was wheezing.

Why was there a picture of a young girl and Naruto-kun of all people in front of her, on a desk, littered with used tissues and empty boxes of said tissues? Why did she look like-

Oh.

"Is he any better?" Jiraiya asked, setting Shizune down into a chair.

"The hell do you think? _He has a hole in his ribcage!"_

Shizune frowned. Hole? Ribcage? What? "And the bandages?" Jiraiya asked tiredly.

"I don't have much more."

She heard him grumble out a few thing with the setup of a list, like he would have to work it into a predetermined schedule. "Shizune." She turned away from the photo and toward Jiraiya, only to find him blocking a bed. Her frowned deepened. The implications weren't that hard to see now.

"Jiraiya-sama, why did you bring me here?" She scowled at him, gritting her teeth in anger.

Jiraiya partly scowled as well, but it receded with the sigh he let out. He briefly looked to Ayame who showed no mercy on him either, her scowl having been there much longer than Shizune's. He sighed again, defeated. "I think you already know." True to his statement, Shizune marched past him, her mind coming up with tons of desperate and hopeful thoughts that were all overshadowed by her current determined personality.

From just the sight of the bed in front of her, complete with wrinkled covers over a heavily bandaged torso and a face that Shizune thought she could never see again shadowed almost completely by blond hair, she gasped. Then, side effect four returned full force and she whirled around and smacked Jiraiya in the face.

After as many things as he'd experienced, a smack didn't make him wince. Nevertheless, Shizune glowered, glared, scowled, anything that could show her anger apart from physical violence that would disrupt the room, she his way. "Get out. Now."

Jiraiya, sending one last look at the bed ridden form, nodded and left, leaving Shizune and Ayame in the room.

Shizune looked over her shoulder and was sure she had a mild stroke. She walked back over to the chair and sat down, putting her head into her hands, thoughts of disbelief, anger, happiness, and worry giving her a throbbing headache once more. Ayame took a nearby wet rag and squeezed it into a bowl before setting it down the forehead of the blond.

"How long?" She asked aloud, snapping Ayame's attention to her. "How long has he been…_Like that?_" She stared pointedly at the body, noticing how the breathing was barely there, and the faint red stains sinking into vision on the bandages.

Ayame didn't answer for what seemed like a long while. "A week, two weeks come Thursday."

Surprisingly, Shizune laughed. This was a happy laugh however. It was bitter, sarcastic, sour, and a complete anti-thesis to a normal one. Shizune brought her face up and looked straight into Ayame's eyes. "Tell him to go get Tsunade-sama. I can't do this by myself."

The younger girl obeyed and left the room.

"Naruto?" As expected, there was no response. Her heart clenched and part of Shizune couldn't wait for the last side effect to take action.

* * *

Last note about the poll.

Anko and Kyuubi are tied for first place and Shizune is in third. Kyuubi _is_ an _it_, if what people refer to it as other than 'he' in the manga, so fem! Or just male, is horribly inaccurate. I mean, if its an it, how can someone call it _he_? But _Anko... _Meh, that'll take some clever thinking.

Or not.


	3. Chapter 3

**The Bloody What?**

**Chapter 3**

**Still Free Me**

**A/N: Well... here goes. Tsunade hates herself as she is left alone with her thoughts and the power of the nine tails can cause numerous things, including anger. That's it. _Read_.**

**Disclaimer: Don't own. I own the rights to this fic though.**

**Summary**:

Uzumaki Naruto did not come back after the battle in the Valley of the End. He did not make it back to see all of his friends and surrogate family members after the ordeal with a smile, nor did he get to say a word about how hungry he was, how much he wanted ramen, or how much he so wished to train.

Uzumaki Naruto died. And in the eyes of those close to him, he was murdered.

His sensei, Hatake Kakashi, the son of White Fang, did not make it in time to stop him from battling, nor was he fast enough to get to Konoha to save his student. Instead, he was able to save Uchiha Sasuke, who assed out from fatigued with his battle with Naruto.

Subaku no Temari and Nara Shikamaru did not win in their fight with the Sound Four member Tayuya. Instead of taking her out with her fan, Temari overestimated the distance and sent a barrage of trees crashing down on not only herself, but Shikamaru and Tayuya as well, instead of her original target. As they tried to escape, they all were seemingly crushed under the trees. They were quickly recovered.

Rock Lee and Subaku no Gaara, unaware of the goings on around them, succeeded in defeating the Last Kaguya, Kimimaro. However, it was not because of sheer skill. Even with Lee's superior taijutsu and Gaara's sand, Kimimaro was more than a match for them. In the last seconds of battle, Kimimaro lunged at Gaara and Lee from within the forest of bones he created, planning to kill them. With Gaara nearly out of chakra, he started to couch erratically, and eventually blood, and this event allowed Gaara to use what little chakra he had left, to crush him in a sand like coffin, crushing his most of his bones instantaneously. And yet, he did not die. Kimimaro lived.

Kimimaro and Tayuya have been captured and interrogated for the plans of their master, former shinobi of Konoha, and snake Sannin, Orochimaru as soon as they were well enough to be out of the emergency room. Meanwhile, Kakashi arrived with the battered and bloody body of one Uchiha Sasuke in his arms, and the prone, nearly lifeless body of Naruto as well, being carried by a shadow clone.

It's been three weeks since then. Uchiha Sasuke is being held in the emergency room from severe chakra exhaustion. It has been decided behind closed doors that he will face the village council to determine his ultimate punishment for betraying his home.

The body of Naruto Uzumaki is gone.

This is where it begins.

* * *

Of course things wouldn't stop with the knowledge that it was her fault he died. Or better yet that _she_ was the one that worked on his mangled, lifeless body while all else rejected the duty because _she_ didn't fulfill her duties as a god-mother and look after him like she was supposed to.

After all, she was a poor gambler, a poor Hokage, an avid drinker, the least capable mother figure ever and she made so many bad choices in her life it was only to be expected that the divine forces of the heavens decided to give her one more reason to regret everything she had ever done.

That day, she had been there when he _died_. Unlike reports that had flooded the entire village not ten _minutes_ before the fact, he didn't die until he was brought back to the village. It had all been such a mess. Such a bloody and horrible mess. It was almost as if there wasn't any _point_ into fighting the deathly aura that had embraced him like a stingy child. His- _everything_ was so bad, it didn't really matter. She had _failed_ and that was all that mattered. No more, and certainly no less.

Not _one _had volunteered to try to help him, save the most obvious exception being Shizune. They had taken up the entire thing by themselves after taking care of those injured in the invasion. He was breathing then, of course. He wheezed, he choked, and he spit blood right in her face when he tried to speak. It broke her in ways she could never imagine. She had seen worse, much worse happen to others, but that didn't stop the cold façade of indifference to help her get through with the operation.

The fox had been trying its best to heal him up and save its own ass, but considering there was a fist sized hole in his chest and his shoulder nearly blown off, it was pointless. Most of the wounded flesh had been charred and dead, and it was slowly spreading like a burning piece of paper. Not even the great demon lord could heal a gaping hole without flesh to bridge the connection between the two separate parts. Not even _she_, could rebuild flesh quick enough in her status. It required time and patience, something that was rare with the given circumstances.

It was a lost cause.

Then she had gotten an idea. It was pathetic really. The entire belief of bridging the flesh together so that the _Kyuubi_ of all things would help_ her _save _him _that is_._ She hadn't put it through, it was a desperate, last ditch effort. To think of the flesh like a bridge after it had been blown up in the middle. It was near impossible to rebuild it without air support, so the only way to reconstruct it would be to patch it up as best as one could and send in the repair people to do their job, slowly expanding as the built more and more.

If she had done that, healing what she could here and there, and then the fox would have done its job, everything would have been okay. She had overestimated the Demon Lord's generosity, plain and simple. That chakra… no, she couldn't call it chakra. It was worse that raw and unfiltered chakra. It had _attacked_ her, hissing at her skin as close as she got when she tried to enact the plan like an angry and dying animal. It didn't want her to save him, it was truly just a mindless beast driven by a depraved loner instinct.

She hadn't had much by then anyway. Before Kakashi had brought him in she had been working her best on shinobi injured in the invasion. She overlooked her own limits for the good of the village. The thought had made her laugh a bitter laugh. Sarutobi and the brat would have guffawed at the thought, wouldn't they?

She had used shadow clones. Shizune too, but mostly her. They had spread them far and wide until they used up their virtual reserves and popped out of existence. It apparently had drained her too much. She had been tired and beaten by the time she had gotten to see that idiot, that brat, that worthless little bastard she would have done anything to save.

It had all left her defenseless, utterly open to _anything._

The Kyuubi's chakra was unlike one she had ever felt before. As a child the stories she had heard were things that put the beast's 'great power' into imagination, something that could be comprehended by the simplicity of the human mind. It had been _too_ simplified. She didn't know why, but being able to imagine a stories tall monster causing disasters in her mind made it easier to capture the power on the scale. But… Now, she hatefully realized that one titled as the nine tailed fox, the demon lord, the lord of the tricksters was never meant to be charted.

_ What an understatement. _

The Kyuubi's… whatever it was, had _eaten_ her chakra like a hungry dog. It devoured almost all of it until she had nearly lost consciousness, reeling around in a circle in a dizzying state. The feeling had been so intense and numbing that she had stood there, helpless while it feasted on her energy. Then it stopped. There was no sign of how or why, or when or what caused it, it simply stopped.

Then he died. The morbid flat line had been the only thing in the room that had made a sound, other than a choking, drowning sound from him. The Shinigami's presence was thick in the room, even after that. That's how it had gone, pretty much. She had refused to put the experience in the report, or even write a report to begin with. She hadn't been, and still wasn't ready. That feeling of being used as a dish was just… disgusting.

She shook her head pathetically. When all had been silent, her body moved on its own and cleaned his corpse up using the regular procedure. Broken pieces of bone completely blown to bits because of whatever had did that to him, lodged in his flesh, shoulder, chest, and all were cleaned out in less than an hour. The rib cage that had been shattered in numerous places and collapsed on his lung like some sort of sick vice, or belt was pulled out and straightened_. _

So in the end, not even the great Kyuubi no Kitsune could save its second (As far as she knew) vessel. To say good riddance would have been a double edged sword. If she had to have that thing alive, she would have abided the possibility as long as Naruto was still breathing and grinning like the idiots she had come to know him and his mother as.

But…This was all of her fault, wasn't it? That horrible necklace that she'd given him. She knew what would happen if he wore it, history would repeat itself, and she would lose another loved one. Her brother, her grandfather, Dan, Sarutobi…

If she had just tried _harder! If she had been at her top game she could have saved him! _That hole was nothing! To hell with what the Kyuubi did! She'd dealt with worse in the past!

She had broken down and cried. Just the thought made her hate herself. She hadn't cried that hard in years, decades probably.

Possibly the worst thing of all was that if she had fulfilled her duties as his guardian, this wouldn't have happened. But she was ashamed of herself, then and now. Did she really deserve to be considered a Hokage? No, of course not. If it weren't for her pride as a descendant of the Shodaime and a Sannin, as well as her respect and love for her late teacher, she would have damned that stupid hat and the 'Will of Fire'. She could never fill in her sensei's shoes, her grandfather, or her great uncle. She would _never_ come close to succeeding the Yondaime no matter what anyone said.

She only wondered what it would have been like if she had chosen to be a mother. A better one to Shizune, and a _real_ one to Naruto.

She wouldn't forget that this was her doing, in one way or another. She wouldn't _let _herself forget either. Instead of looking after him like she had promised, she neglected her duties. Instead of being there to save his mother, she wasn't, which she deemed to be the start of the dark ages of her life. Instead of _coming back to the village when her sensei had all but _**begged and pleaded **_with her_, she had chosen to drown her sorrows in the sensation of losing money and drinking booze. Oh yeah, just wonderful.

She had definitely known who he was the second he and Jiraiya had come to retrieve her. And yet, she fought him. She couldn't even say that she fought _with_ him because of the sheer fact that struck her pride like the sharpest blade. He was so _weak_! If he had been in a normal environment with her those chakra scalpels would have never even gotten _close_ to him!

None of that mattered at all. She could go on and on about how Jiraiya could have helped to, or that the Third could have revoked her title as Sannin long ago and forced her to come back to the village, or that her 'god-son' would have lived a torturous half-life until the end of his days and that he was better off dead anyway. She could have said that the village didn't even deserve his baby teeth or his clothes, which, in her own way, she did. It all boiled down to the fact that none of it would make a difference, it was all moot.

The word 'Godson' was a word that tasted so acrid and horrible in her mouth she wanted to vomit vehemently even when it was spoken in her _mind! _She didn't deserve to say, think, or even use that word in anyway. '_Godson'_ was just another representation of her many failures in life, the responsibilities she rejected, and the way the people in charge of the universe were screwing her over.

That little twerp! Had he had any _real_ hope in being Hokage, he wouldn't have died like this! He wouldn't have died in battle like some- some martyr! Hokage's lived to protect their village! He didn't even get that far yet! Had he had any sense in that _thick_ little head of his, he would have let _her_ deal with it or someone else! But _no,_ the stupid little bastard made a promise, and he _always_ lived up to his promises! Idiot, she screamed in her mind, you can't _live_ up to anything when you're _dead!_

And today the celestial forces decided to strike her another one and kick her while she was down. His body had gone missing? It couldn't get any worse… it couldn't, it was impossible. Tsunade forced out all of the possibilities about what the thief might be doing to his body or where they might have put it. She would go to the scene, find out who did it, beat their entire body into pudding, resign as Hokage and leave. They'd wouldn't just ignore her, like they had all of his life while she had been gone. They'd beg her to stay, but she'd simply refuse and leave them with the callous shell of what the Village used to be.

She ran as fast as she could, and then faster than she ever did before. When she found the bastard that did this, she would leave. No sidetracks, no exceptions. Her mind was made up.

"Hokage-sama, stop!"

Out of all the voices that she had ignored that yelled for her to stop, she stopped abruptly and whirled around in rage at this one. Her fist ready to knock Kakashi's head into orbit.

She recognized it, his voice that is. How could she not? If anyone was at fault just as much as her _and_ Jiraiya, it was him! He was guilty of as many crimes as she was, if not more! Better yet, _he_ was the one that trained Naruto's murderer!

"Hokage-sama!" Kakashi narrowly avoided the fist of the Godaime by jumping back after widening his eye. Tsunade didn't let that hinder her once, and stood up and drew her fist back again and clenched it. "What do you want Hatake?"

The jounin pointed behind her at a large gathering of people that currently targeted their eyes and ears to the two of them, though it was fairly obvious that it was previously on something else. They pointed at her and whispered, she could instantly tell that as fast as she had been sprinting she would have trampled them all… and wouldn't have cared much either.

Behind them all, smoke rose into the sky. She saw this too and walked forward, the citizens parting a path for her. She bitterly looked to her sides past them and was greeted with the antiseptic cleanliness of the one of the medic sections of the village, attributed by the deathly aura that only the morgue held.

They had been looking at the building, the morgue section of the hospital. She scowled the moment her bloodshot, drooping eyes landed on it. It looked as if the face of the third floor had been completely blown out. The smoke came from inside, rubble littered the ground and glass and chairs were lodged in the concrete.

Tsunade was at a loss of what to do or how to react, so she called upon those that had been trailing her ever since she left the Tower. "ANBU!" The high ranking shinobi appeared almost instantly dropping from the roofs, causing the crowd to gasp in surprise. They immediately went to the site of the explosion and investigated, but Tsunade could have cared less about it.

"Kakashi." She growled out, her voice slightly slurred. "Put that eye of yours to good use for once and find out who did this. Now get out of my sight." Kakashi stood a few feet away from her, trying to stutter out a response but all that showed was a slight movement of his mask. Her face contorted angrily. "I said go!"

He moved without any other action to the scene, to the other ANBU. She turned back around to face all of them and squinted her eyes at the building. "I want a full report on the damages as well as everything else by the end of the day! Do you understand?"

The entire squad of ANBU, plus Kakashi nodded. "Yes Hokage-sama!"

Tsunade turned away from the scene with the hard and disgusted expression of hers turned distraught. The chakra around this place… how could she forget it? She hoped to Kami that somehow, someway it wasn't what she thought it was, but that it was what she wished it would be. This place couldn't… no, she couldn't deal with something like this. She was no Yondaime.

She shunshined out of sight almost immediately and headed back to the Tower to look for the imported sake. She would need a drink soon.

Kakashi had almost immediately pulled down and revealed his Sharingan and just as quickly widened his eyes. The morgue was always a depressing place to be around but when he had arrived, it had been much more _restricting._ He hadn't felt this since Naruto's death and before that when he was ANBU captain. It was black in sight to his Sharingan; angry and flowing through random places in the air like smoke.

But there was another. He saw two of them. Two different strains of chakra, as well as the broken façade of a cancelled genjutsu.

* * *

Her mind was wavering, she was losing consciousness. Step… step four was _close. _It was… getting really hard to think. _Despite_ that slow, nervous shell shocked smile creeping up on the sides of her face like a snail, she paced the room frantically and ignored the desire to wipe her eyes. She sent glances at the bed ever second and every step she took, too cautious and hesitant to rule out it was a cruel joke, genjutsu or hallucination brought on by the fatigue of the shunshin. _Despite_ this, she wanted to laugh maniacally, happily even.

Would he disappear again?

Two weeks? Shizune felt like pulling at her hair and ripping it straight from her head, which she didn't. _Two damn weeks he'd been like this?_ She fumed on. Wait, no! _Almost_ two weeks. It was only on Thursday that it would become two weeks! Oh, well, that changed everything! It was only Monday, and _the last time she saw him was when she was trying to keep his pulse steady!_ She, and her teacher, her mentor, the woman who raised her, had only been crying their guts out for the past three weeks to a month come this _Saturday! _So _two weeks_ was nothing! Absolutely nothing because she believed he was dead for a _month!_

Oh, he had been laying in a near comatose state in a slightly dilapidated apartment building that stunk of ramen. He was sonly being exposed to an unsterile environment, bedbugs, and other things that made her scream unsanitary!

He _could _have been lying in a hospital room and being taken care of where she knew he was safe and could take care of him while her teacher drank in joy. _She_ could have been the one tending to his wounds and trying to keep him from getting a serious condition that only one such as herself, being trained by one of the Sannin would be able to handle apart from her teacher herself! And should anything go wrong, the nurses and other doctors would be on the ready to lend a helping hand!

Shizune stopped in her tracks. No, no they wouldn't. If they had helped out the _first_ time, he wouldn't have been like this. They would have gotten the supplies faster and not wasted their chakra on shadow clones to help them, and they would have had enough energy to see him all the way through!

Oh Kami in the name the name of all that was ironic in the worst way she didn't _dare_ think what would happen once Tsunade found out!

Was it _wrong_ of her not to be remorseful at the thought of Tsunade punishing Jiraiya worse than she ever did in their life? Was it mentally perverse and unstable? Was it _bad_ that she smiled at the thought? No! Of course not, Shizune defended herself. That bastard hid this secret from them- he hid Naruto-kun from them _all_! She thought she had lost him forever! Her teacher's only reason for happiness in this village!

While he was slowly dying because of her senior's senior citizen judgment, _they_ had looked everywhere in a drunken state of melancholy and anger, fear, and for her teacher, rage. For any sort of possibility that it _had_ been a dream, no, a _nightmare_ that dragged along painfully. From his apartment, to the- the training grounds, to the secret place of his he'd told them about atop of the Hokage monument!

He had begged them to come up there with him sometime. Training or playing, with him, she supposed, it never really made a difference. They had gone there nevertheless. It… It had been a stab to their pain and hope, further increasing their will to just give up, which, eventually, they did. Because they found nothing there; no kunai, spare clothes, sounds of running in the trees or curing because someone didn't get a jutsu right. Not a single flash of orange that stood out from the foliage. _Nothing_.

For you see the thought that he was alive and the events that had taken place in the past 15 hours didn't escape their minds. No it was the _only_ thing that they could think of. Maybe they were dreaming. She hadn't had a single inkling to how it was possible, but she had hoped it was. It hadn't been.

He wasn't in his apartment. Tsunade herself had sent her there in a desperate state, the only things she couldn't make out being drowned by mumbles and tears, and her hand pawing at her face, muffling her voice. There

He kept him from them and he _deserved_ any kind of punishment that was dealt. Shizune smiled the tiniest bit. Yes…

Maybe she _was_ like that Mitarashi woman…

Shizune sat back in the chair. How long _had_ it been? She knew how long chronologically it had been, but in every other sense it seemed like eternity! The nights had never dragged along so long when she drank. Her mind went from one thing to the next. Her eyes raced frantically over what was visible from the covers and she frowned.

How long exactly had his shoulder been healed enough to have those bandages wrapped ever so tightly around his neck to his stomach? Had he woken up yet? Though the temptations of questioning logic and facts pricked at her failing consciousness and sub-conscious, to simply brush this off would be… disastrous!

Her eyes flicked to the mop of hair that covered the pale, unconscious face that she thought she would never see again. Shizune stood up and walked over to the bed, her face calming down, and then turning into a sorrowful frown. When she got there, she looked down at the body on the bed and bit her lip.

"N-Naruto-kun…" She brushed the hair out of his face and sighed. If there was anything to sober her mind up, this was it. He was so… _different_ when he was asleep. The sight of his face when she had recovered from exhaustion and checked on Tsunade after he had died was… she didn't know how to describe it. It wasn't peaceful. It wasn't happy and it wasn't the grin she had so quickly grown accustomed to. It was simply… _empty._

But now he looked at peace. She smirked a little, sniffling slightly. The irony in that statement… She peeled the covers back a little and revealed his torso. It was almost completely wrapped in bandages and stained with red here and there. She wanted to run her hand across it but pulled back. She would injure the wounds like that probably, or at least irritate them.

The Kyuubi must have healed him, was the obvious conclusion she had made. There was no other way. She smiled. She didn't care, out of that sentence the only word that mattered was 'healed'.

She looked around the room and her shoulders slumped disappointedly. There weren't many things here she could use to clean his wounds. As Ayame had said, there were barely any bandages left, probably only a foots worth. There was almost an entire thing of alcohol left; that would be good for cleaning out the little wounds spread out but…

She nervously glanced at the biggest red stain; it was about the size of three of her fingers balled up. Right at his mid-section, on the left side, where his ribs were it looked slightly dried up, yet fresh, which showed that the wound was either having trouble healing, something she doubted, or somehow the scabs and stitches they had put in when operating on him were broken or being ripped.

Shizune bit her lip again. She was nervous… What if she hurt him? No, she couldn't think like that. Now was not the time for that type of attitude. He needed her.

She sighed and attempted to calm herself down. Step four was getting closer, she just knew it. She just didn't know how close, in her thoughts she had lost track of time. If she had to guess, it would have been about ten minutes. If she could just… _just calm herself down and think rationally then she could avoid it!_ She couldn't be useless right now, not when Naruto was counting on her!

She made a hand seal and her hands glowed green. Immediately, she drew them over Naruto's torso and ran them over it, stopping over his heart and lungs, then his ribs, and finally his shoulder. The Kyuubi… must have healed _that_, too. It was… odd. It just didn't seem like that was something that could be healed in a mere two weeks.

She shook her head and cast the thought and those spawned from it away. After five more minutes, she had went over the status of his ribs and the area around his heart where the hole was. It was _still_ there. _Still there?_ _How could the great fox heal a shoulder almost blown off but not a damn hole by the heart? What kind of useless-_

A fiery pain erupted from the pit of her stomach and Shizune gasped. Her hands dragged there and quivered. It was almost as if… as if she was being _drained_. The green hue around her hands paled to a smoky white and dissipated. What was going on?

She blinked and lost her footing, falling on her behind again, but cushioned the fall with her hands. This feeling… her chakra felt like it was being sucked directly from her body…

Then as it would answer her thoughts, she looked up at the bed. The feeling was almost palpable, but she couldn't describe it. It was numbing and it felt… _hungry_, starving even. And it was aimed at _her_.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up not a moment before the draining of her chakra continued. She couldn't move. It wouldn't let her. It had wrapped around her in a vice and kept her at bay, feeding on her energy like a greedy monster. On the bed, Naruto's almost lifeless body squirmed and his eyes snapped open; slit black and as golden as the sun.


End file.
